Abraham Pressburger with his charges from the Hashomer Hatzair movement

My charges and I, in the courtyard of our home in Kosice in 1946. After the war I intended to go to university, but then the worldwide leadership of Hashomer Hatzair discovered me. They gave me quite a large sum of money and asked me, actually they convinced me, to found a home for children that had returned without their parents, from the ages of 14 to 18. And in that home they would study for a half day and work for a half day, and we would prepare them for the trip to Israel, to a kibbutz. I really did found such a home in one old Jewish school in Kosice. I ran it together with one chavera (female comrade) from Hashomer Hatzair. She was named Miriam Weinfeld. We were very successful. There were 40 children there. Among them were also children from families where the father and mother had also returned, but were convinced that the right thing to now do was to leave for Eretz Yisrael. In those days it was also a battle. It was a time of debates as to how to deal with the problem in Palestine. There wasn't peace in Palestine, but everyone hoped that a Jewish state would be founded there. With this I have to note that Hashomer Hatzair founded three such homes in Slovakia. One was in Bratislava, one was in Nitra and one was in Kosice. Besides this there were also other organizations, Maccabi Hatzair and Mizrachi. Mizrachi was a religious Zionist organization, which founded a similar home in Kosice.